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Layering is a great technique for adding depth and interest to spring fashion ensembles, fancy desserts and sandwiches, paintings, sculptures, collages, belly dance combinations... and fiction!

I just finished writing Chapter 13 of Briars and Black Hellebore. The sleeping beauty has awakened, and the beast has transformed. In Chapter 14, the newly arising residents of the sleeping beauty's castle will find themselves in a culture clash when they venture out into a new century. This is a great opportunity to have the characters, and the reader, explore the new setting through a variety of cultural and material details that have either changed or persisted over the past hundred years.

In my existing chapters that take place in the pre-sleep century, the characters, setting, and daily life within the castle are only generally sketched out. There are a queen and a princess and a handful of named servants or staff, mostly without specific titles. The people sleep, wake, talk, and eat …

I am trying to raise a healthy, happy child who will have the best chances of growing into a healthy, happy, and fulfilled adult.

This attitude tends to come off as rebellious and disrespectful to older generations with a "children should be seen and not heard," authoritarian philosophy of child-rearing, but au contraire! I believe it is simply a departure from the incredibly disrespectful way in which adults in our culture are accustomed to treating children.

Recently, I contributed a guest post to the incredibly profound and accessible mama blog Tongonto.com. Most of the bloggers who contribute to that site discuss parenting issues that have always been deeply instinctual for me. When I became a mom, I instantly lost all patience for people who disrespect children and people who disrespect parents (including other parents and celebrity parenting "experts"), conspiracy theories, snooty trends, and all the other obnoxious cra…